<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Are You Ready?
Review: I promise you Mr. Hogan will cause you to reconsider some of your most closely held beliefs. Beliefs that until now were so obvious there was little need to even think about the rationale behind them. From AIDS to global warming to evolution to the history of the solar system to the ozone layer to relativity and the big bang, Mr. Hogan asks whether existing data might be just as well (or better) be explained by alternatives other than the conventional wisdom. While the author clearly has his own beliefs, he does not shove them down the throat of the reader, but offers alternatives to the common wisdom and challenges the reader to think more clearly about their long-held assumptions and how they got them. This is done in the spirit that scientific inquiry is not afraid of facts, but strives to reach conclusions consistent with the facts. I don't believe anyone can come through a careful reading of this book without beginning to question at least some beliefs and assumptions that they previously accepted without a second thought. Some parts of sections two and three about cosmology and relativity get a little complicated, so if you find yourself beginning to get bogged down, skip ahead to the later sections, and come back to these sections at your leisure rather than quitting. This book is a marvelous read.
Rating:
Summary: Are You Ready?
Review: I promise you Mr. Hogan will cause you to reconsider some of your most closely held beliefs. Beliefs that until now were so obvious there was little need to even think about the rationale behind them. From AIDS to global warming to evolution to the history of the solar system to the ozone layer to relativity and the big bang, Mr. Hogan asks whether existing data might be just as well (or better) be explained by alternatives other than the conventional wisdom. While the author clearly has his own beliefs, he does not shove them down the throat of the reader, but offers alternatives to the common wisdom and challenges the reader to think more clearly about their long-held assumptions and how they got them. This is done in the spirit that scientific inquiry is not afraid of facts, but strives to reach conclusions consistent with the facts. I don't believe anyone can come through a careful reading of this book without beginning to question at least some beliefs and assumptions that they previously accepted without a second thought. Some parts of sections two and three about cosmology and relativity get a little complicated, so if you find yourself beginning to get bogged down, skip ahead to the later sections, and come back to these sections at your leisure rather than quitting. This book is a marvelous read.
Rating:
Summary: excellent alternate look at scientifc data
Review: James P. Hogan makes a strong case that much of the scientific interpretation of data pertaining to a wealth of subjects is subjective (tainted by the person's assumptions of what to expect or the community's bias) as opposed to an objective analysis. Using numerous examples to make his point like global warming, the expanding universe (big bang, crunch, and all in between), and evolution, etc., Mr. Hogan evaluates commonly known data but draws radically different conclusions from them. His point is not to disprove the accepted theories, but to demonstrate that other interpretations are as valid. At times the empirical data and Mr. Hogan's drill can become quite complex, which will lead to many readers like this reviewer taking several days and rereads to follow the logic on a particular topic. Though not quite as proven, Mr. Hogan believes a major problem is the government funding of science often leads to political decisions on grants and tenure. However, it is the alternative possibilities that make this an excellent insightful book. No cow remains sacred even the icons Darwin and Einstein are challenged. Ironically even Velikovsky, a 1950s radical, who's Worlds in Collision shook the science community, receives a boot or two. Terrific work that makes the case that big government spending big money stifles creative thinking with fantastic but complicated examples.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Light fare overall, entertaining in a fantastical way
Review: This book does for hard science what the works of Graham Hancock and Erich Von Daniken do for the serious study of archeology and history. It's entertaining and thought provoking--given you read it with the right attitude--but please don't open your mind so much that your brain falls out, folks.
The point where Hogan lost me, and I started to take the book much less seriously, turned out to be in the very first chapter. While Hogan argues against traditional Creationism, for some bizarre reason he proposes so-called Intelligent Design as worthy of consideration. For those of you who don't know, Intelligent Design is nothing more than Creationism with a technobabble veneer and the G-Word replaced by some mysterious Intelligence. Not surprisingly, its proponents prefer not to specify who or what actually arranged for life on our planet. It could be some supernatural deity, Super-Advanced Aliens, or Something Else That We Can't Imagine, and naturally they claim that it doesn't matter, anyway. Intelligent Design has become trendy among a certain clique of engineers, who have somehow managed to convince themselves that it's not just another Creationist Flavor of the Month.
Certainly there is plenty to argue about in the various theories of evolution (there are more than one, dear reader, it's not all just super-fanatical neo-Darwinism as Hogan would apparently have you believe). However, replacing 19th Century Creationism with 21st Century Creationism just doesn't make any kind of sensible case against the existing evolutionary theories.
I went into this book with a fairly serious and straightforward frame of mind. Since that big disappointment in the first chapter, I downgraded my expectations significantly and read accordingly, which turned out to be just as well.
In the end, I enjoyed the book in the same way I enjoyed Chariots of the Gods back when I was a kid. Like Chariots of the Gods, it's thought provoking, with a few nuggets here and there of good information to balance out the occasional conspiracy theory, and contains loads of fodder for sci-fi and fantasy stories. Any such writer will find this book to be a gold mine of cool ideas.
In summary: Read it, enjoy it, take its main premise to heart (which can be summed up as the time honored bumper sticker slogan: "Question Authority"), but remain skeptical of silliness and, to use a hoary old cliche, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
<< 1 >>
| 
